Vascular Endothelial Damage in COPD: Where Are We Now, Where Will We Go?

• Published in: Diagnostics (Basel) Vol. 14; no. 9; p. 950
• Main Authors: Screm, Gianluca, Mondini, Lucrezia, Salton, Francesco, Confalonieri, Paola, Trotta, Liliana, Barbieri, Mariangela, Romallo, Antonio, Galantino, Alessandra, Hughes, Michael, Lerda, Selene, Confalonieri, Marco, Ruaro, Barbara
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 01-05-2024
• Subjects: Airway management; Atherosclerosis; Blood vessels; Cardiac patients; Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); Clinical outcomes; Comorbidity; Development and progression; Diagnosis; emphysema; endothelial dysfunction; Endothelium; Inflammation; Lung diseases, Obstructive; Medical research; Medicine, Experimental; nailfold video capillaroscopy (NVC); Nitric oxide; nitric oxide (NO); Oxidative stress; Pathogenesis; Patients; Risk factors; Smoking; Spirometry; nitric oxide (NO); nailfold video capillaroscopy (NVC); endothelial dysfunction; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); emphysema
• ISSN: 2075-4418; 2075-4418
• DOI: 10.3390/diagnostics14090950

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has higher rates among the general population, so early identification and prevention is the goal. The mechanisms of COPD development have not been completely established, although it has been demonstrated that endothelial dysfunction plays an important role. However, to date, the measurement of endothelial dysfunction is still invasive or not fully established. Nailfold video capillaroscopy (NVC) is a safe, non-invasive diagnostic tool that can be used to easily evaluate the microcirculation and can show any possible endothelial dysfunctions early on. The aim of this review is to evaluate if nailfold microcirculation abnormalities can reflect altered pulmonary vasculature and can predict the risk of cardiovascular comorbidities in COPD patients.
A systematic literature search concerning COPD was performed in electronic databases (PUBMED, UpToDate, Google Scholar, ResearchGate), supplemented with manual research. We searched in these databases for articles published until March 2024. The following search words were searched in the databases in all possible combinations: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), endothelial damage, vascular impairment, functional evaluation, capillaroscopy, video capillaroscopy, nailfold video capillaroscopy. Only manuscripts written in English were considered for this review. Papers were included only if they were able to define a relationship between COPD and endothelium dysfunction.
The search selected 10 articles, and among these, only three previous reviews were available. Retinal vessel imaging, flow-mediated dilation (FMD), and skin autofluorescence (AF) are reported as the most valuable methods for assessing endothelial dysfunction in COPD patients.
It has been assumed that decreased nitric oxide (NO) levels leads to microvascular damage in COPD patients. This finding allows us to assume NVC's potential effectiveness in COPD patients. However, this potential link is based on assumption; further investigations are needed to confirm this hypothesis.